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If recent debates prove anything, it's that you're wrong (Column)

By Seth Brown, North Adams Transcript

Posted:
07/17/2013 04:24:26 PM CDT

Updated:
07/17/2013 04:24:27 PM CDT

All of these people are also wrong. (Vadim Ghirda)

There has been a lot of controversial political news in the past week or two. I try not to get too political in this column, and obviously writing about a hot-button issue is going to bother some people, but just because something is controversial doesn't mean that it isn't important to talk about. That's why I've decided to take this opportunity to clear things up and explain the complexities of this particular issue that you have been talking about a lot in the past few weeks. I'm going to address it in a way that covers everything you need to know about this pressing issue on which you have chosen a position that you obviously believe very strongly:

You are wrong.

Allow me to elaborate. You are definitely wrong. And I know this may come as a shock to you for various reasons, not least of which because you really thought you were right. Unfortunately, you were wrong about that too. That's two things you were, and still are, wrong about. Now, I understand that you may be experiencing some confusion, and most likely your initial reaction will be denial. Being faced with your own wrongness can cause grief, which starts with denial, and then moves to anger, on the long road to acceptance as explained by Samuel Coleridge in the famous poem:

But, the fact remains that much as you may want to deny it, you are wrong. Now I want to say up front, it's not entirely your fault that you were wrong. After all, you were given incomplete information. Granted, you could have taken a little time and found more information by doing some searching online, but that would have taken a lot of effort and you already felt like you had enough information.

And if that new information didn't match with the information you already had, you might have thought the new information wasn't any good anyway. After all, if it was any good, you'd already have had it, like the good information you already knew. And what are you going to believe, what you know, or something that doesn't even agree with you?

The thing is, the information you had is only a small part of the whole thing, and it's specifically part of information carefully curated and put together to make you take the position that you did on this issue to begin with. Because you're not really working with information you dug up yourself, but with information handed to you by people who already knew what they believed, and wanted you to believe the same thing. And they were very serious about this issue and so they explained it to you with information that showed how they were obviously right, and anyone with half a brain could see that they (and now you) were right, and anyone who disagrees with you is either an idiot or a jerk, possibly both, and is making America worse.

But you don't have all the facts, haven't considered how other people feel, and aren't seeing the whole picture. That is why you are wrong, and being angry about it and using strong language doesn't make you any less wrong. It just makes you more angry. Now before you go thinking I'm biased, I want you to do one thing — forward this article to someone on the other side of the issue.

Because they're wrong too.

Seth Brown is a humor writer, the author of "From God To Verse," and disagrees with everyone.